


On Primrose Hill

by LadyCharity



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Secrets, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Norse Bro Feels, Tragedy, grossly OOC for the sake of feels and sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCharity/pseuds/LadyCharity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the secrets and lies that the Odinson family was built upon, cancer was the worst kept one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Primrose Hill

**Author's Note:**

> I was hesitant about publishing it, mostly because I felt like it would disappoint readers. This story is extremely self-serving, extremely out of character, and written out of catharsis more than anything else. It doesn't serve to broaden Thor and Loki's characters in my opinion, because Thor and Loki are very uncharacteristic in this modern AU (although to me it still feels like it can be their story); rather, it purely served me the writer. However, I have been mentioning it on my tumblr a lot and some people have still expressed interest to read it, which I am very touched and grateful for, so I am happy to share this emotional vomit with you :'). Thank you and enjoy!

On the day that Mother died, Thor realised just how thankful he was that Loki wasn't living with him at the moment. That meant no more drawing straws with the family on who had to break the bad news, no more biting down on his tongue to keep from yelling in his face or clutching fists until fingernails were welded into his palm because he wanted to hit Loki so bad (he shouldn't, he knew he shouldn't, Loki can't control it, _well neither can Thor_ ), no more near-heart attacks because he thought Loki did something irrevocable to himself—and at the very least, it meant it was far easier to keep Loki blissfully unaware.

Mother passed as one would expect of a victim of stomach cancer—with grace, dignity, acceptance, and in so much pain that there were times in which Thor would run out of the hospital room and gag in the bathroom out of pure sorrow. Thor would tell himself that this was for the best, his mother was no longer in pain and was now in peace, but all Thor truly believed was that his mother died slowly and painfully, cancer was shit, and his brother wasn’t as insensate as everyone hoped.

“We will have to have the funeral on Thursday morning,” Thor said to Jane. Engaged to the family evidently meant she had to help with the funeral planning of future in-laws—or in-laws would be, as Frigga missed the wedding by ten months. “At ten in the morning. It’s the only time slot they really have available for us.”

“Will we be able to make it to Hampstead in time?” she said. “It’s a good hour long commute. Maybe even longer.”

“We’ll stay in our old house place again,” said Thor. He and Jane were there already, huddled at the kitchen table with papers and telephone numbers at their disposal. Mother had died only six hours ago and they hadn’t had lunch yet. Their stomachs rumbled despite the occasion, tactlessly.

“And the lot’s already marked out for her?” said Jane.

“We had that arranged ahead of time,” Thor said. It was two in the afternoon, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. Two days ago, now would be the hour he would have got out of work early to see Mother at the hospital, and hold her hand as she smiled at him and tried not to cry out with pain. It was strange to think that he never had to do that anymore. “But we hadn’t really settled on a guest list.”

“Well, that is simple,” Jane said. They sounded like they were organising a business meeting in Tahiti with Stark Industries, make sure the restaurant offers this menu, book these beds for the CEO, don’t forget that he is allergic to prawns, by the way Mother is dead and she never had the chance to even be a grandmother yet. “You, your father, and Loki will be hosting. You’d want to invite also cousins and—”

Thor made a sound in his throat. Jane looked up.

“What is it?” she said. Gently.

“Nothing,” Thor said.

He looked down at the list that Jane was already writing. Mother was dead. He had rushed to the hospital just thirty minutes before she died, and he was gasping for breath at the same time she was taking the last of hers. Mother, who first taught him maths by kissing his fingertips and called every day when he was in university just to talk with him, was dead, and they were basically planning an exuberant party because of that.

“Wait,” Jane said, furrowing her eyebrows. “Who told Loki?”

“What?” said Thor.

“About your mother,” said Jane. “Did someone phone the hospital?”

Thor’s mouth felt sticky. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again. Jane crossed her arms.

“You haven’t told him yet?” said Jane.

“I don’t know how to explain this,” said Thor.

“Thor, his mum just passed away today.”

“I’m aware.”

“Is anyone going to tell him that?”

Thor opened his mouth, then closed it. Jane watched expectantly.

“You’ve got to understand, Jane,” Thor said. “Loki’s making progress. So much progress lately. I can’t—if he finds out Mum just died, it’ll just send him hurtling backwards.”

“So how long are you going to wait to tell him?” said Jane. “Until he gets released again? Thor, that could take weeks.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

“He’ll _miss the funeral_.”

Thor licked his lips.

“He’s going to ask after your mum too, probably, if you ever talk to him,” said Jane. “You know, if my mum had cancer and I was unable to see her myself, I’d probably ask a lot too. And are you just going to give him the news then? You can’t lie and say—”

“He won’t ask,” Thor said.

Jane raised an eyebrow.

“Like hell he wouldn’t,” said Jane. “Didn’t you say he asked you if I still hadn’t lost two kilograms since that _last_ time I saw him, a good year earlier?”

“That’s different—and I’m still sorry about that,” Thor said. Jane’s eyebrow twitched. “But he will not ask me that.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me on this, Jane. All right?”

“Thor,” Jane said.

“I said _trust me_.”

“I want to, but I have a feeling that this isn’t a good thing for anyone.”

“It _is_ ,” Thor said. “It is and it—I haven’t thought it out. It was supposed to be, but I didn’t—think on the long run.”

Which was a laugh, because the long run of stomach cancer was not exactly unpredictable. And at the very least, he had a year to think upon his sins, from when Mother was diagnosed to when she finally passed.

“Then tell me what’s going on,” Jane said. “Because it sounds like whatever you thought you were doing is coming back to bite you hard in the arse.”

“Loki won’t ask about Mum’s cancer because he doesn’t know about it,” said Thor.

The moment the words came out of his mouth, it was like a thick woollen blanket descended upon them. All the sound between them was muffled static.

“You have got to be joking,” Jane said.

“Jane, listen to me—”

“You kept this from him for a year?” said Jane. “ _This whole time_ —oh my God. Oh my God—how the _hell_ did you manage that?”

“He’s been in and out of the hospital all year, he’s just been getting _worse_ ,” said Thor. “This time has been the worst he’s been since the breakdown, and then he started finally showing progress. If he found out about Mum—about the cancer, it would have just destroyed him mentally.”

“How in the hell did you explain that to your _mum_?”

“It was her idea,” Thor said. He put a hand to his forehead and _God_ , time was a bitch. It swaggered without looking back at the mess it left in its wake. “She and Father decided it, thought it best not to tell Loki, to keep the truth from him so he wouldn’t get stressed about it. God knows the last thing he needs is another mental breakdown.”

“Did they decide what to do when _this_ would happen?” Jane said, gesturing to the funeral invite list.

“I don’t think that was left in her living will, unfortunately.”

Jane clenched her teeth. Thor loved her heart that she would feel indignation and empathy for others, but this was not something she should be upset with _him_ about. Goodness knew he was already going to pay for this in the long run somehow, unless Loki suddenly decided to lobotomise himself.

“So,” she said. “He’s not going to get an invite to his own mum’s funeral.”

“Jane, please, I need to think.”

“You can’t keep this secret forever from him,” Jane said. “What are you going to say if he asks, how’s Mum?”

“Keep mum,” Thor said.

“ _Thor_.”

Thor sucked in a deep breath.

“I can’t take it back now, can I?” he said. “Now I’m just going to have to make it up as I go along. What’s done is done, Jane, please—there’s nothing I can really do to fix this at this point anymore.”

He ran a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair, nearly sagging. They all probably had to deal with Mother’s will later, and that was always a source of distant relative feuding. Also, Mother was dead. Did he remember that? Well, now he did again.

“I’m sorry,” Jane said. “I don’t mean to push. I’m just—it’s not going to be easy. For _anyone_.”

“It’s not easy whether Loki knew about it or not,” Thor said.

He didn’t want to sound bitter. In retrospect, he had it very lucky—he was twenty-five years old and never experienced a single death of a close relation until now. Albeit the fact that this was his mother, he had it comparably _fortunate_ compared to others. Not that it really much changed the fact that he loved his mum and now she was gone, and keeping face was never one of his strong suits.

“When is he going to be released, anyway?” Jane said.

“I don’t know,” Thor said. “Soon, the doctors said. But not terribly soon. So by the time he gets out, everything will have already been done with. Or at least, the funeral.”

Which meant, not everything at all.

“Look,” Thor said. “Let’s try taking this one at a time.”

Mother was gone. Thor couldn’t ring her up anymore, or kiss her on the cheek. He suddenly had the desire to be only one metre tall again, to wrap his arms around her neck and press his cheek against her heartbeat. But not only was he too old for that now, she was too dead.

“All right,” Jane said. She pursed her lips but she leafed through the papers on the table between them. “All right, let’s get this done first. After the funeral, do you want to have refreshments for friends and family at home or a pub?”

* * *

After the funeral a week later, as well as the light refreshments (they settled on home, not pub. Too superfluous to rent a private room in a pub, they reasoned. Very expensive) and the silent acceptance of a tidal wave of calla lilies and tureens of comfort food (someone else’s mother’s leftover mash and stew—Thor felt like this was infidelity), Thor took the underground to Chelsea.

He had made sure to strip off all the dark attire for something more casual, which felt almost sacrilegious at most because today was the day of his mother’s funeral and he was wearing red. That wasn’t proper, what was he doing, didn’t he love his mother? But it was necessary—Loki may be clinically mental, but he wasn’t an idiot.

The tube ride was tedious. Hundreds of people streaming in and out, switching lines, rustling their edition of the Evening Standard. It wasn’t on the front cover that Mother had died—nor was it going to be on BBC News this evening, nor would #FriggasGone be trending on Twitter, nor would any single person in this carriage know that his mother whom he long believed he could never live without was putting him to the challenge.

Or that his brother had the emotional stability of a sand castle, and Thor was going to have to keep lying to him to keep him relatively _sane_.

He got off at Sloane Square and walked fifteen minutes, since Chelsea was too damn wealthy to have something as plebeian as a tube station in its premise. Visitation hours started at four, but by the time Thor reached the ward it was already four twenty-five. He knew he could always visit another day—he was exhausted enough as it was today. But today was their mum’s funeral, and only one of them knew it—the least Thor could do was at least see Loki.

“Loki Odinson,” Thor said to the woman at the desk. She shuffled through her logs—Thor braced himself for another, we’re sorry, sir, the patient has been deemed unable to receive any visitors today.  “I’m his brother.”

“Right this way, sir,” she said, and Thor didn’t know whether to feel stressed or relieved.

Loki’s hair was shorter since the last time Thor saw him—which was a relief because the last time his hair was far too long and stringy and he looked like he was living under a bridge, not one of London’s finer mental wards. He still looked unhealthily thin, and the way he kept scratching at his palm did not go unnoticed. Thor immediately pulled on an easy smile, which Loki sneered at.

“After all this time,” Loki said. “Now you come and visit me.”

Thor sat down in the chair across from Loki. Loki’s bottom jaw twitched.

“ _Why_?” he said.

“Are you angry that I’ve come to see you?” Thor said.

Loki shrugged a shoulder and looked to the side.

“How are you feeling?” Thor said.

“Get me out of here,” Loki said.

His eyes did not leave the window. It was raining, as per usual—it had been raining all throughout Mother’s funeral. Lowering the casket into the grave was not a pleasant experience.

“Loki,” said Thor.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, they’ll hear me if I do,” Loki said.

Thor cast a sidelong glance at the chaperoning nurse, who clearly heard everything.

“Loki, this is to help you,” Thor said.

“Help me with what?” Loki said. His voice was strained. “I’m fine. I have told them all the time, I’m fine. This place is drowning me.”

“You’re doing so much better,” Thor said. “You must realise that—you’re doing so well. Just a little more and you can go home, Loki.”

Except home for Loki was now sans Mother, and he and Father had yet to really discuss what the hell they were going to do about that. Probably send Loki off to Thor and Jane’s in Greenwich, knowing Father’s prowess in pushing difficult matters further and further away from himself as bodily possible.

“This place is for people who are absolutely _cracked_ ,” Loki said in a hoarse whisper. “They’re mental, they’re absolutely _mental_ —they punch walls and scream and hear voices and—and they cry every damn time there’s a meal or when there’s community group or if they’re making us watch a stupid comedy movie and when they cry I fucking cry because I can’t help it, it’s goddamn _contagious_ and then they see me crying and they think I’m also mental but I’m _not_ , Thor, I’m just _incubated_.”

“You aren’t mental,” Thor said. “You aren’t crazy. We know that, and we aren’t pretending that you are.”

“I want to leave,” Loki said. “I want to leave, I’m sick to my stomach. I want to throw up here, I don’t want—”

He was shaking now. Thor put a gentle hand on Loki’s arm, hoping that the nurse didn’t catch the vomiting part else try to keep Loki in for even longer. It was a figure of speech, hopefully.

“Tell me what you’ve been doing,” Thor said. He rubbed Loki’s back soothingly—if Loki got even more upset visitation might have to be cut short, and that would just upset Loki even more. “Read any books, made any friends?”

Loki spat out a laugh. His back was tense under Thor’s hand.

“I don’t have friends,” he said.

“What about your psychologist?” Thor said. “Charles something. You said he was nice.”

“Dr Xavier is my psychologist, not my friend,” Loki said. His voice was cringe-worthy bitter. “He gets paid to ask me if I feel like hurting myself.”

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.”

“He’s paid to care, who wouldn’t like that?”

Thor let out a breath.

“Books?” he said.

“I’ve read the ones Mum gave me,” Loki said.

“You must have read them all about five times through by now,” said Thor.

“Four. One of them, only twice. And then one of them I’ve only read through once because every time I read a chapter of it I got—”

He cast a glance at the nurse again before turning to Thor, lowering his voice like a child trying to pass a secret about where his secret stash of lollies were.

“I got nightmares,” Loki said. “I kept dreaming I was falling. Falling through sky and space and—and getting lost, and then falling—smacking the pavement— _smack_ —and I’d see my blood and bones and there’s a—I’m falling, see, and I pass the sun, and black holes, I pass asteroids and they nearly hit me, and—when I _smack_ onto the pavement and there’s blood and brain and I don’t wake up nearly on time, because I’m always falling and it’s cold and hot at the same time but either way it hurts.”

“What book is this?” said Thor.

“ _Le Petit Prince_. I had to tell Dr Xavier about my dreams—once—and then he told me to put it down for now,” said Loki.

What Mother was doing sending Loki children’s books was beyond Thor’s understanding. At the thought of Mother, though, and the fact that Loki’s books from her were probably six months old by now, Thor’s nose stung, and he pretended to be afflicted by allergies.

“I’ll get you new books,” Thor said. He felt like he had promised Loki this already, but considering the events of the past year, the chances of remembering it were undeniably slim. “There’s no point in you rereading the same stories over and over again.”

“I do like them,” Loki said. “They’re familiar. They’re comforting.”

“Don’t they get boring?” Thor said.

“Don’t take them away,” Loki said. Suddenly his eyes were wide and the little colour in his face was starting to drain. “Don’t take them away. I want to keep them. I want to keep them here.”

“I’m not going to,” Thor said.

“Mum gave them to me. She sent me a good amount.”

“She certainly had.”

“I told her I read them all—four times. She never responded. Was she upset with me? _Dammit_ , I shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t I?”

“When did you tell her this?”

“I had tried calling her. We are only allowed ten minutes on the phone. I tried calling her mobile but she never picks up. Thor, tell her to answer. How is she? Fuck, she’s upset with me. I’m fucking useless.”

Thor put his hand on the back of Loki’s neck. It made him relax, but only a little. He still shook, and pressed his knuckles against his thin lips.

“She’s not upset with you,” Thor said. His throat felt swollen inside. Before Mother died, she cried out for Loki. Thor wondered if she was regretting her choice of not telling Loki the truth at the last moment, but it was far too late for that. Now Thor had to inherit that repentance. “It’s okay, Loki. You’re not useless. She loves you.”

Loki twisted away from Thor, toward the window. He was curled up on the chair, knees drawn up to his chest, even though he was too long for that. He looked uneasily small.

“How have you been eating?” Thor said.

Loki shuddered. Thor let his hand fall to his side.

“Loki,” said Thor.

“I hate it here,” Loki said. His voice was muffled with his fingers against his lips. “I hate it so much here. I want to go home, take me home.”

“They’re trying to help you be happy and okay, Loki,” Thor said.

“I didn’t want to finish my sandwich,” Loki said. “That’s all. It had bacon in it. I don’t like bacon.”

“You don’t have to like bacon.”

“I just didn’t want to finish it. I wasn’t trying to—I wasn’t thinking—I just didn’t want to finish it, but they told me if I don’t finish it I’ll lose points, and if I lose points I have to stay longer and I couldn’t—”

“We want you to be healthy, Loki.”

“Why doesn’t Mum see me anymore?” Loki said. “She’s left me. She said she wouldn’t leave me alone. She’d never leave me.”

Thor swallowed hard. He put a hand on Loki’s wrist. It was thin and delicate; Thor tried to not feel the scars.

“Things have been busy,” Thor said. “Really busy. But she loves you, Loki.”

“She won’t see me, even though she promised,” Loki said. His voice was brittle. “Neither will Father. Or you, until now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re all having the best times of your lives with me locked up, aren’t you?”

“ _No,_ Loki,” Thor said. He tightened his grip on Loki’s wrist. Loki grimaced. “Things have just—it’s been very difficult. I’m very sorry. I’ll see you more often—I’ll see you every day.”

“No, you won’t,” said Loki. “You work until five. What is happening today?”

Thor’s stomach flipped. He let go of Loki.

“What do you mean?” Thor said.

“It’s Thursday,” said Loki. “You only ever see me on a weekend.”

“I took time off today,” Thor said.

“Like hell,” Loki said.

“I did,” Thor said. He wasn’t lying, either. “I took time off today; I wanted to see you.”

“You’d take time off for your Jane, not me,” Loki said.

“That’s not true,” said Thor.

“Sir, your time is nearly up,” said the nurse.

“Just a moment,” said Thor. “Loki, I wanted to see you.”

“How’s Mum and Dad?” Loki said.

He was resolutely not looking at Thor. It made the blatant lying slightly easier, but only just.

“They’re fine,” Thor said. The words fell out so quickly from Thor’s mouth he knew he didn’t even consider telling Loki the truth. It was a problem he was going to have to wrestle with later. Much later. “They’re fine, and they send you their love.”

“Mum hasn’t even written,” said Loki.

Well, Mother was a little too busy dying, but it wasn’t like Loki would know that, because Mother and Father made arguably crap decisions and Thor had to deal with cleaning this up. It felt wrong, grossly wrong, to be indignant at a dead person, but the dead weren’t automatically saints and Thor was still lying to his brother.

“It’s been so difficult lately,” said Thor.

“Sir, visitation hours are over,” said the nurse.

‘Hours,’ as if he wasn’t limited to only sixty minutes each day to talk to Loki. But Thor nodded, because at the very least it was only sixty minutes a day he had to set aside for lying. He reached out and hugged Loki—Loki received it with hunched shoulders but a tentative hand on Thor’s back anyway.

“I love you,” Thor said. “You’re going to be okay. You’ll go home soon.”

He would have to deal with the fact that Mother was no longer home later—much later.

* * *

Sometimes Thor would cry unexpectedly, even though his week of bereavement leave was already over. He thought he’d be all right—he was twenty-five, after all, and in the most reasonable sense it wasn’t like Mother’s death was unexpected. But he could easily be doing something as mundane as cleaning out a closet or crossing the street, and _something_ —a ghost of perfume, a childhood memory, a piece of spoken advice—would come to mind and he would stop and cry. Then he’d blow his nose and continue whatever it was he interrupted himself from.

He’d recall, sometimes, moments that were so ridiculously commonplace that he would give so much to relive them. As simple as eating breakfast at the table together, or riding the bus together to downtown, moments mostly from his youth and teenage years in which there was more time of silence between them because living together was already enough. How he wished he could just go back to those moments and _talk_ to her, fill up those silent gaps with conversation to know her more instead of let them widen because he never fathomed there was a day he’d notice their emptiness.

He thought he’d have enough time to clean up his act before Loki was released, but when the ward called saying that Loki was to be released, he figured that life really was trying to pay him hell for shit he had accumulated in his life and had yet to clean out.

“He has to stay with us,” Thor said. Jane was digging through the closet for extra sheets, harried. “If he stays with Father, it’ll be obvious to him. We have to break it to him more slowly than that.”

“Are you planning to break it to him at all?” Jane said.

“Have more faith in me,” Thor said. They only had a pull-out sofa that they could spare in their small flat, but it was better than sending Loki back to their childhood home in Hampstead, which was now far too large and empty now that it was sans Mother. He laid out several pillows on it. “I’d rather keep him close, anyway. The hospital is releasing him, but I don’t know how much of what they say is true. He has a knack of getting himself _kicked_ out more than released.”

“Does he usually not live on his own?” said Jane.

“He did for a time, but you remember how well that worked out,” Thor said. “I’d rather it this way. He’s uncontrollable when alone. I don’t want the next time I see him be if I’m identifying his body.”

“Thor.”

“I’m not even pretending, Jane, this is a legitimate concern.”

Jane whipped out the sheets, snapping them flat onto the sofa. Her lips were pursed.

“He’s only twenty-one,” Thor said. “And he’s got the mentality as broken up as a demented seventy-year-old that he acts like a seven-year-old. No, I don’t want him living on his own at all. If he can commute to the university from where he is we’re golden.”

“Told him about your mother yet?” said Jane.

“You’re making this doubly difficult for me,” said Thor. “He’s better now—look at him, he’s finally getting out. If I told him beforehand, the stress would have destroyed him mentally and sent him back.”

“You’re going to tell him out of nowhere that your mother had stomach cancer for a year and died and is already buried up and probably stress him out so much he’ll be sent back, so maybe he isn’t as fine as you say he is.”

“Anyone is going to be stressed out about that.”

“Then where exactly is the logic in this, Thor?”

“Nowhere, but I didn’t make the decision.”

“Yes, but you’re perpetuating it.”

“What do you want me to do?” Thor said. “Break the news to him? I won’t give him another breakdown, Jane, I can’t do that to him. Because if he does—and if he tries anything again, I have to send him back, he’d kill himself if I don’t. Hell, he’ll kill himself if I do, but what do I do?”

Maybe next time his family kept secrets from each other _he_ should be the one to snuff it just to avoid the after effects of everything going down.

“You will have to eventually, Thor,” Jane said. “I’m not telling you to do anything. I’m telling you—you will eventually. Unless Loki suddenly hits his head and loses all his memories and forgets he even _had_ a mother, you will have to.”

Thor clenched his teeth. Of all the secrets and the lies that the Odinson family was built upon, cancer was the worst kept of them all.

He collected Loki from Chelsea at noon. Loki’s luggage was packed and he was wrapped in an overlong coat despite the spring. He was still picking at his palm, as if something was stuck in the lines. When he saw Thor, he swallowed; he was still painfully thin, and Thor could see his Adam’s apple bob in his slim throat.

“I thought you’d forget,” Loki said. “I thought you’d just bugger off. I could go home on my own, I know the way, but I thought you would have—”

Thor reached out and hugged Loki tightly. He smelt of sterile medicine and starched laundry, and he was still ridiculously frail. Thor was afraid of crushing him.

“I told you that you would be all right,” Thor said.

He squeezed Loki’s shoulder. Loki tried to pry himself out of it.

“You’re hurting me,” he said.

Thor called for a cab. He helped Loki bring in his luggage and made sure he was securely fastened behind a seatbelt. Loki winced.

“Close the door,” he said. “Thor, please, close the door.”

Thor did so, and told the cabbie the address. When he settled in the seat next to Loki, Loki took Thor’s wrist frantically.

“Thank God,” he said, and he sounded like he was about to sob. “Thank God, oh, hell—oh my God.”

“Loki,” Thor said.

Loki was breathing in deeply, as if he was feeling ill and needed fresh air. He rested his head against the back of his seat, closing his eyes.

“Are you feeling all right?” Thor said.

“Fine,” said Loki. “Fine.”

He tightened his grip on Thor’s wrist. Thor remembered the time when Loki wouldn’t let Thor touch him, which was generally directly proportional to how suicidal Loki was, so this physical affirmation was almost relieving if not shocking.

“Oh, Thor,” Loki said.

Thor held Loki close. His little brother was almost drooping against him and it was hitting him, repeatedly, like a cricket bat, that he knew nothing about Frigga.

“What do I do now?” said Loki.

“What do you mean?” Thor said. “We’re going home. I’m taking you home, we’ll give you some dinner—” (at ‘dinner,’ Loki swallowed hard. Thor spoke more firmly) “—and then you get some rest.” 

“No, after that,” Loki said. “And after, and after. I missed a year of uni.” His voice began to thin. “I missed a year of uni, I’m never going to get that back. I’ve failed class, I’m behind, I don’t know what to do, I—”

“Don’t worry on it,” Thor said. “Take it a day at a time.”

“No, I mustn’t, because another day passes and another day and another and then before I know it it will be—”

Loki stopped talking when he noticed the cabbie glancing at him through the mirror. His lips thinned into a straight line.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Thor said. “It’s June. Term has already ended even if you wanted to try. We’ll get everything sorted out and by fall you’ll be back to normal.”

“Normal,” Loki said. “You’ve said that at least three times this past year.”

He stretched. His knees were bouncing constantly. Thor put a hand on Loki’s knees. Loki pulled away from Thor, crossing his arms tightly.

“What time is it?” said Loki.

“It’s a little past noon,” said Thor.

“Do you think it will be very crowded at Regent’s Park right now?” Loki said. “I want to go. It’s been so long, Thor, they hardly ever let us out and about. I don’t think I’ve seen a magpie in the past five weeks.”

“I hardly notice them,” said Thor.

“You never do, you only look for ravens,” Loki said. “We’d race up Primrose Hill all the time, don’t you remember. Whoever wins gets to meet God first.”

“I remember,” said Thor.

Loki turned toward the window. He frowned, leaning closer to the glass.

“That’s the Thames,” Loki said, looking out to the grey water. “Where are we going? This isn’t north.”

“Not strictly speaking north,” said Thor.

“Where are you taking me?” Loki’s fingernails were digging into the leather upholstery. “Is this to another ward? They said I was okay to go. Where are we going?”

“We’re going home, Loki. My home,” said Thor. “I live in Greenwich now.”

Loki turned to Thor, eyes wide.

“Greenwich?” said Loki.

“I had moved there with Jane,” said Thor.

“Jane, your girlfriend.”

“She’s my fiancée, Loki.”

“I—”

Loki paused, his lips parting. Thor suddenly realised that he may or may not have informed Loki of this in the two hour-per-week contact he ever could manage with him.

“How long have you been engaged?” Loki said.

“Three months,” said Thor. “The wedding is not for another nine.”

“Nine,” Loki said.

“If even,” said Thor. “It has been difficult trying to plan it. We haven’t gotten around it at all, really. We just want it next spring.”

“Well,” said Loki. “Congratulations.”

He said nothing else, staring out the window. Thor touched his elbow. He didn’t move.

“Loki?” said Thor.

“Hm?” Loki wasn’t looking at him.

“Is everything all right?”

“Fine.”

Thor watched Loki watch the passing scenery. Loki didn’t move a single muscle.

“Loki—”

“I’m tired,” said Loki.

Thor leaned back into his seat. Loki didn’t speak for the rest of the ride for the half of hour it took. When the cab dropped them off in front of Thor’s flat building, Loki took hold of his luggage and let himself out, striding straight to the front door despite not knowing Thor’s flat number.

“Loki, let me get that for you,” said Thor.

Loki shook his head. Thor buzzed them through the front door. The doorman greeted Loki and received no reply. He jabbed at the button to call for the lift for even floors. Thor took Loki gently by the wrist and called for the other lift.

“I live on the ninth floor,” said Thor.

Loki didn’t look at him, only at the sign above the lift indicating at which floor it was stopping. When the lift came for them and the two were closed in, Thor turned sharply to Loki.

“Loki, what’s wrong?” he said.

“Nothing,” Loki said, with that element of surprise in his voice, as if to ask, now why do you ask that? Emotional instability Thor’s arse, it did nothing to Loki’s ability to lie.

“You haven’t spoken a word to me since we first got into the cab,” said Thor.

“Oh,” Loki said. “I suppose I had nothing to say.”

“Ever since I mentioned my engagement to Jane,” said Thor.

Loki’s jaw twitched again. He was digging into his palm with his nails.

“Tell me what’s the matter,” said Thor.

“Nothing is the matter,” Loki said, his voice far too light to be genuine. “Don’t worry.”

“Loki—” Thor was almost positive there was _some_ sort of therapeutic course in the mental ward that said something about keeping mum about one’s feelings. “You know I know you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” Loki said.

“But I can’t care for you as well as I want if I don’t know how to correct myself so I _don’t_ upset you,” said Thor. “Why won’t you tell me?”

Loki said nothing. The lift doors parted on the ninth floor. Loki took that as his escape, dragging his luggage out and waiting expectantly for Thor to unlock one of the doors. Thor half considered keeping planted in the corridor until Loki finally spoke up, but he was so _tired_ and Loki would sooner jump out the window—literally—than talk to him, and he was realising just now how much Loki must have _tricked_ the ward if they thought he was okay enough to leave.

“Flat thirty-three, okay?” said Thor as he jabbed the key into the lock. “I haven’t much space, though, I’m sorry.”

“Fine,” Loki said. “But what happened to Hampstead?”

“What?” said Thor.

“Our house. Mum and Dad’s house,” said Loki. “Why am I not with them? Their place is bigger.” His eyes widened a little. “They don’t—do they not want me there anymore?”

“No,” Thor said immediately. “That’s not it. Loki—they love you. It’s just—things are tough.”

“Things have always been tough,” said Loki.

“That’s life for you,” Thor said, pushing the door open. “Loki, home is with me. I want you here. With me.”

And life would be hell lot more difficult if Loki wasn’t.

“Jane!” Thor called out. Loki kept his eyes on the ground. “We’re home! Loki’s home.”

Jane came out from the kitchen, offering Loki a polite smile.

“Hello, Loki,” Jane said. Her smile grew considerably warm at the sight of Thor. “How—er—how was the ride here?”

“A little tiring,” Loki said.

He put his luggage against the wall and examined his surroundings with the air of a hotel inspector. His eyes narrowed. Thor felt himself go jumpy under his brother’s calculating gaze, as if he was measuring just how much of this home was absolutely not _home_ like the one with Father and Mother in Hampstead, and how much he was just going to despise it.

“So, I suppose I will be your flatmate for—some time,” Loki said. “Sister.”

Jane smiled and took Loki’s coat for him. “So Thor has told you?”

“Finally,” Loki said. He wouldn’t look at Thor. “And you’re marrying next—spring, I take it.”

“We’re hoping April or May,” Jane said. “You’d be best man, yes?”

“Would I?” Loki said.

Jane turned to Thor. Thor winced at her gaze.

“Wouldn’t you?” she said.

Thor opened his mouth to speak, but Loki cut through immediately.

“Well,” he said. He wore a smile that reached so far from his eyes that it might as well have been a drooping frown. “I suppose I will hope I can get back on my own two feet by then so I won’t be present during honeymoon. Or at least in my parents’ basement, if Mother and Father don’t object.”

At ‘mother,’ Jane glanced sharply at Thor, who determinedly did not match her gaze.

“I want to call Mother, Thor,” said Loki.

“Right now?” Thor said, checking the time. Even though that really hardly mattered. “I don’t know if you can.”

“Why not? It’s a Sunday,” said Loki. “What is anyone possibly doing on a Sunday?”

“Do you want to take a bath first?” said Thor.

“They make us take a bath before leaving,” said Loki. “Where’s your phone?”

“Haven’t you a mobile?” said Jane.

“Jane,” Thor said.

“That’s at Mum and Dad’s place,” said Loki. “They don’t let us have it in the ward. Thor, give me yours.”

“It’s out of batteries,” said Thor.

“Thor, can I talk to you?” said Jane.

“In a moment—”

“Does Mum even know I’m out?” said Loki. “Does she even know I’ve been released?”

“Loki, please, I need to get things straightened out,” Thor said, because Jane had already grabbed his sleeve and was dragging him toward their bedroom. Thor didn’t want to leave Loki alone—experience stated that was the worst decision he could make, but he certainly couldn’t talk to Jane about anything she wanted to talk about with Loki around. “I’ll get to you later. Don’t worry.”

“Later?” Loki said.

Jane had already pulled Thor into the bedroom and snapped the door shut behind them. Thor straightened out his sleeve.

“He’s going to listen against the crack of the door, you know,” Thor said under his breath.

“Then that’s your problem, literally,” said Jane. “Thor, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Thor said.

She jabbed her finger toward the door. Thor could probably bet fifty quid that Loki was plastering himself on it right now to listen in.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” she said. “You’re no liar.”

“I’ve noticed. I really have,” Thor said.

“Tell me something,” Jane said. “When exactly did Loki find out about the engagement?”

“A little less than an hour ago,” said Thor.

“Thor, he’s your brother. He’s your little brother.”

“Do you think it’s easy for me to really keep track of what to tell and what not to tell this past year?” Thor said.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Thor,” Jane said with a weak laugh. “The longer you put this aside, the harder it’s going to be.”

And Thor be damned if he felt _anger_ toward Mother—which was unfair, Mother was dead and couldn’t defend herself and she spent the last half a year of her life weighing only six stones and in absolute pain—but hell with it, he felt _angry_ because she loved her youngest son so much that now he had to pay for that with lie after lie and the pressure that anything he did or did not do could easily set Loki on edge.

“Not today, Jane,” said Thor. “I can’t do it today. On the first day out—I can’t do that to him.”

“I don’t know when you’re going to do it,” Jane said.

“Well, you aren’t alone,” said Thor. “Enough. Please.”

Jane let out a deep sigh. Thor opened the door, expecting Loki to tumble out from behind it. Nothing such. He frowned, checking down the corridor, in the bathroom and the living room. His luggage was still where he left it.

“Loki?” he said.

He looked into the kitchen and nearly let out a choked moan. Loki was trying to pry the duct tape off the knives. At the sound of Thor coming in, his hand froze. His palms were red—deep scratch marks criss-crossing against the lines, and maybe now he was looking for something more satisfying.

“Loki,” Thor said.

His eyes stung. He just wanted to lie down on the ground and _sleep_ all of a sudden.

“I was just wondering how you’d ever cook with them,” Loki said.

He tossed the knife back into the drawer, snapping it closed as if it was nothing important. His hand lingered on the drawer knob, as if he wanted to recant.

“The ward said you were getting better,” Thor said. Almost accusingly. “Said you were okay.”

“I am _okay_ ,” Loki said. Suddenly he was shaking again. “Thor, don’t send me back. I’m okay. I swear. Please. It’s real. They were telling the truth. I’m okay.”

Thor pulled Loki’s hand away from the drawer. Loki refused to move from the spot, as if his bones became trees and kept him rooted to the kitchen.

“Just wanted to see,” he said.

* * *

 

Grief sometimes came like appendicitis. Unexpected, and if he couldn’t distract himself quickly enough, keening and unbearable. It’d start with a simple memory—he could be brushing his teeth for all that it mattered—and then it evolved into a landslide of regret.

He remembered how he had told Mother he would call her after work on a Thursday—this was before she was diagnosed—but when he got home he was so tired he thought he’d take a fifteen minute nap and woke up at nine in the evening and never did call her back.

Or how one year he couldn’t make it to Mother’s Day because Jane had been abroad to New Mexico all year and was returning to London that very day.

Or how, as a teenager, he told Mother to stop bothering him, stop nagging, no, I just want Loki to come to the park with me, not you too, I just want my friends to sit at the pub with me, not you, and _God_ how he would give everything just to take back those words and steal another hour or two with his Mother.

And during those moments, when the nose began its sting and he found himself frozen he wanted to spill to _someone_ before all these emotions and memories ate him alive—but when he’d turn for Loki, because Loki would understand, Loki was her son too, Loki was his _brother_ —he had to stop and choke down his own grief. Loki did not understand. Not yet. Thor didn’t know when, either.

It became undeniably evident that whatever Loki did to convince the ward that he had gotten better was an act worthy of an Olivier award. Trying to get Loki to eat was nearly impossible, as if Loki was trying to take a leaf out of the suffragettes’ book and protest against life. If he was relatively calm and collected during the daytime, writing or reading or something healthily cathartic, that meant at night he was shaking, stiff, head in his knees on the sofa and breathing so heavily as if his lungs had too many holes in them. Thor would hold Loki, assure him he was _okay_ , he was safe, he was loved, and it could last anywhere from half an hour to until midnight, and start again a day later.

“We should bring him back,” Jane whispered. The lights were off, the bedroom door was closed, but the flat was only so large and the walls so thick. “He’s not well. He’s clearly still not well.”

Thor wouldn’t lie down. He still sat against the headboards, trying to iron out his mind and let it hang to dry, away from all the tiredness.

“I can’t send him back,” said Thor. “He hates it there. He wants to be with family. _I_ would rather him be with family.”

“So you could keep lying to him.”

“Jane, one moment. Just one moment, could you not bring that up?”

“It will be one day, sooner or later.”

“Jane, my mum is dead and my brother was diagnosed as anorexic with acute clinical depression and suicidal tendencies. I really do not know how to reconcile the two of those.”

“Thor, can you _handle_ an acutely, clinically, depressed, suicidal anorexic?”

“He’s my brother,” said Thor. “That’s who he is. And I can take care of him.”

Two hours later, when Jane had drifted asleep and Thor was tossing and turning, opening the window, closing it, and finally settling on insomnia for the night, he slunk out of the bedroom. All the lights were off; Loki was silent in the living room. Thor kept a hand on the walls to guide his way to the kitchen for a bottle of ale, or something numbing.

He accidentally bumped into the edge of the doorway. It would have been nothing if he didn’t hear a quick gasp from the living room. He turned sharply toward the living room; the lights were off but Thor realised that that hardly indicated anything.

“Loki?” Thor said.

There was a shaky breath. Thor padded toward the living room, feeling for the standing lamp. When he turned it on, Loki scrambled to pull his sheets over his head. He curled up on his side on the sofa, frozen still like some quilted stone. Thor sat down on the edge of the coffee table, watching Loki’s stilled form.

“Loki, I know you are awake,” Thor said.

Loki didn’t move. When Thor put a hand on the tense lump, it jerked. He pulled the quilt away from Loki’s face. His eyes were red and swollen and his lips were ripped from biting down too hard.

Thor’s heart sank. It was undoubtedly going to be long night, and he had to wake up early tomorrow to go to work.

“What is it?” Thor said.

“Nothing,” Loki said. His voice was strangled.

“Come on,” Thor said. “What’s wrong?”

Loki wouldn’t look at Thor. Thor figured he could count the number of times Loki actually looked at him in the past week with only one hand.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Loki said.

He looked like he was crying. God knew if that was the case, or if he was as sleep deprived as Thor was.

“Are you frightened of something?” said Thor.

Loki didn’t answer. He drew his knees closer to his chest, resting his chin on them. Watching the window with the drapes drawn and the lonesome streetlights trying to peek through the hairbreadth gap in the middle.

“It’s okay,” Thor said. “You can tell me.”

Loki buried his face in his knees again, and Thor could only think, Here we go again.

“Was it a nightmare?” said Thor.

“I want to go home, Thor,” Loki said.

Thor’s lips tightened.

“You are home,” said Thor. “Aren’t you okay, here with me?”

“It isn’t home if I know it won’t be a year from now,” said Loki.

“Why do you say that?”

Loki scratched his palm again. His fingernails were long. It drew redder marks.

“I want to go back home,” Loki said. “Come with me.”

“What?” said Thor.

“Come with me, to home. _That’s_ home,” Loki said. “Where Mum and Father are. This is a stranger’s place, Thor. A stranger’s place that’s not near Primrose or a Morrison’s, that doesn’t have our ash tree in the front.”

“This is my home, Loki,” Thor said with a soft laugh. “It’s not so strange if I’m here, is it?”

“You are here,” Loki said, and the way he said ‘you’ was so distant it was like he was saying a ghost’s name. “But why can’t you take us home? And not here, where it’s so—so _strange_ and never stops being strange, and I get lost just sitting in one room. Leave here and let’s go home.”

“Loki, it’s nearly two in the morning and this is Jane and my home,” Thor said. “This isn’t strange, see?”

He held out a hand to touch Loki’s shoulder. Loki drew back—not out of fear, like a wounded animal, snapping back as if Thor’s presence burned. He shied away, warily, as if he didn’t know Thor. Somehow, those made his heart pang more.

“I can’t stay here forever anyway,” Loki said. “I’m not supposed to. Why start now?”

Thor pursed his lips. He knew that—eventually he couldn’t hide Mother from Loki, and eventually Jane and Thor would have to move on with their new lives together. Loki had to be elsewhere when that happened—even if for so long he had always been at Thor’s side. Now he needn’t be any longer, and he was going to wander lost, from door to door, homeless, because Mother was gone, and life foreclosed on his childhood.

“You should get some sleep, Loki,” Thor said. He stood up. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re just tired. Get some sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

He moved out of the way to go back into his bedroom, back to Jane and his bed, but a hand touched his pinkie. Thor turned to see Loki holding on to just that one finger as if that was his last lifeline.

“Don’t go yet,” Loki said. “Just a little longer. Until I’m ready to sleep. Please.”

Thor _needed_ that bed, with Jane under the covers and his job waiting for him five hours from now. But Loki was holding on his pinkie finger so tightly and Thor could feel his hand shaking around it, and he knew that even if there really were no nightmares in Loki’s mind then it must be far worse, because that meant they were inevitable.

“Please,” Loki said. “Just a little longer. I won’t bore you. We’ll read something—old stories, to each other. Or keep our heads busy with stupid riddles. Carefree things.”

Thor wanted to say, I’m not a child, Loki. He didn’t stay up late, giggling in his pillowcase because Mother didn’t know they were breaking their bedtime, making forts out of bed sheets and pillows so they could roast plastic bangers on a torch, or play with toy soldiers, or read library books together, because they were old now, and Mother was too dead to tell them to go to sleep, and Loki had a mental breakdown and Thor was getting married. This, with Loki holding onto Thor’s pinkie at two in the morning, was the closest they would ever return to that.

But instead he sat down on the sofa next to Loki. Loki lay down, curled into himself like a shell, his head gently resting against Thor’s leg. Thor could only keep a hand on Loki’s shoulder, as if his palm was enough of a security blanket to cover him. It must have been, because within minutes Loki fell asleep.

* * *

 

Nowadays Thor was so much more aware of how _dying_ everyone truly was. Ever since Mother, who played tag in Hyde Park with him and Loki and could sing worthy of the Royal Opera House, was undeniably dead, it came to Thor how everyone else would die no matter how very alive they were.

His grandparents, he realised, were dying—elderly now, and with bad livers and backs, and it hit him very bluntly that any day he spoke with them would be the last.

His friends could be dying—one had overcome a nasty lung cancer earlier, but for all they knew it could relapse and Thor’s friends would be dead. He could be dead. Jane could be dead. Loki. They all could be dead very soon, and it was supposed to be very normal.

For someone who lived twenty-five years of life up until now feeling as if he and everyone around him were immortal, like gods, it was a douse of cold rain.

“Where do you see yourself ten years from now?” Loki asked.

Thor was tired. It was ten thirty and he already wanted to go to bed. After coming back from work and eating dinner and cleaning up after dinner and finishing responsibilities and talking with Jane he had only enough time to be with Loki. Life was shit, and time didn’t slow down one bit for him to clean that up.

“Ten years,” Thor said. “Thirty-five, I suppose. Married, maybe I’ll have kids by then.”

“Will you move?” said Loki.

He was sitting at the sofa—it was like he hardly settled anywhere else in the flat. Thor knew that Loki didn’t call this place his home—and Thor didn’t believe it either.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Thor. “Jane teaches at the university. Unless she has moved onto something else, we’d probably stay close to Greenwich.”

“Children,” Loki murmured. He squinted at Thor. “I see three for you. A lot. But only you.”

“Only me?”

“I don’t know how many children Jane would like.”

“Oh, she would be okay with two,” Thor said. “We talked of this.”

“Have you?”

“Of course, we’re starting a family together. We would want to agree on some things.”

Loki smiled wryly.

“Any promotions?” said Loki.

“God, I hope so,” said Thor.

“Be careful, wouldn’t want you getting promoted too fast.”

“Ten years is plenty of time.”

Loki snorted. Thor poured himself a glass of orange juice. Jane had gone to bed early, and by that Thor knew that she would probably still be awake to whisper with Thor when he finally retired.

“What about you?” said Thor.

“What?” said Loki.

“Ten years from now,” said Thor. “Where will you be?”

Loki uncurled his limbs. He was so silent in his movements, it was like he was a figment of one’s imagination—a hologram. Something Thor was hallucinating, except Loki was a victim of mental instability, not the product of it.

“I don’t know,” said Loki.

“That’s okay,” Thor said. “I hadn’t the faintest idea what I wanted in the long run when I finished university.”

“No,” Loki said.

He blinked before picking at a scab on his arm. Thor didn’t remember Loki getting a scab, or having one when he came back from the mental ward. He knew it was stupid, and improbable—there would be bigger things to worry about than a scab if it were true—but he made a mental note to check the knives in the kitchen for marks.

“I can’t see myself in ten years,” Loki said. “I can’t see anything at all.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Thor said immediately.

Loki swallowed hard. He stared at the ground.

“I don’t know,” Loki said. “Will I still be with Mum and Dad like some pillock? Or locked up again for God knows what—I don’t know. I can’t even see that. I don’t. Will I make it ten years? God—I’d sooner see my stories in books exist more than I exist.”

Silence fell between them. Thor didn’t like these words—didn’t like the idea of ten years from now he knew where he was going, and even if he didn’t he knew who he would be with, but Loki was MIA, a snap of him plastered on a bus stop Missing poster, last seen ten years ago, because no one knew if Loki would get better, if he’d find a family, if he’d keep writing or keep falling over and over again.

“I know one thing you ought to do,” Thor said.

Loki raised an eyebrow at him. Thor realised this may be one of the closest things to a common conversation between them in years—one that didn’t involve lies, or sudden tears and confusion, or strange tension that drove a deeper wedge between them, made up of years and time and the very fact that they were very independent lives.

“What’s that?” Loki said.

“Survive,” Thor said. “You’ll survive.”

Loki said nothing at first. Thor wondered if he understood that it was a promise but more of a plea, because Thor was going to deal a painful blow, inevitably, and he didn’t know if it would be a fatal one. Survive, Loki, where Mother didn’t, where Thor was struggling and where you, you and all your diagnoses and pills and broken trust, have time and time again even when you didn’t want to. Survive like Mum on her deathbed, thirty-eight kilograms and hardly able to lift her head, because even when she knew she was dying she lived, and stretched her hand a little further even if she couldn’t see where she was reaching.

Silence, and then Loki let out a laugh.

“Oh, Thor,” he said. “That’s something you say to strong people.”

* * *

 

Thor remembered, when he was around nineteen and Loki fifteen, Mother told them to write a sympathy card to their cousin. Their uncle had passed away—an uncle married into the family, and always lived too far to visit. Even their cousin they could hardly claim to know, only seeing each other maybe once a year. But Mother told them the news, and Cousin was still Cousin.

They didn’t buy the card until a week later. They sat at the kitchen table, chewing pens and pencil rubbers, trying to understand what it was like to lose a parent, and failing miserably.

“What about,” said Loki, “‘We are deeply sorry for your loss. It must be extremely difficult to lose your father—‘”

“We don’t even know the relationship between him and his dad,” said Thor. “They could have hated each other for all we know.”

“If they did, what good is a sympathy card and not a congratulatory card?”

Thor shot Loki a look before checking the kitchen to make sure Mother didn’t hear.

“Well, it’s no point saying it must be difficult to lose his father if we don’t really know if it was really difficult,” said Thor.

“How is it not difficult unless he was a crap dad?”

“I don’t know if he was a crap dad.”

“Well, then.”

Thor sighed. “What about, ‘In this time of grief, our hearts go out to—’”

“You sound like you were mass produced and sold wholesale,” Loki said. “It sounds empty and frilly.”

“Then what do you suggest we write?”

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t you the wiser one between the two of us?”

“Who said I was wise?”

Thor picked at the price sticker still stuck on the plastic film of the sympathy card. They needed to postmark this as soon as possible before dinner, with the Royal Mail collected for the last time this day at six thirty, and they still had no idea what to write.

“‘Our hearts go out’ sounds all right enough,” said Thor. “Or something goes out. Or we’re sending. We send our—our hearts—”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s not literal.”

“It still makes no sense.”

“Look, we’re trying to express sympathy, not write an essay. Our—our prayers go out? Well, they can, but something that sounds a bit better to him. Our—our love goes out to you. Our love goes out to you?”

Loki furrowed his eyebrows. Thor spun the pen between his fingers, waiting for Loki’s input.

“You know,” Loki said. “And don’t write this on the card.”

“Fine,” said Thor.

“You know,” he said. “If we really loved him, we would have sent this card out much sooner.”

Thor dipped his head. Loki leaned forward and rested his elbows on the kitchen table, lips pursed.

“I don’t know what to write,” Thor said, “and still be honest.”

“Do we need honesty?” Loki said. His voice was flat.

“Yes,” Thor said. “We can’t write what we don’t mean in a sympathy card.”

“But what would he want to see? Write what he would want to read, he’s the one who lost a father.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know,” Thor said. “I have absolutely no idea. I don’t know how it’s like to lose a parent. I can’t imagine it. I don’t know what I can possibly be compassionate when I truly, honestly, am not suffering with them.”

Loki licked his thin lips. They were nineteen and fifteen, before anything fell apart, and so damn blissfully unaware. And it took someone else’s grief card for them to know that.

“There,” Loki said. “That’s something to say. ‘I can’t imagine the pain of the loss you are dealing with right now.’”

Thor didn’t know whether to laugh or shake his head. What were they, that they had lived long enough and still didn’t understand what children, adults, sisters, brothers, parents suffered heartache after heartache? It almost felt as if none of them were human, that they were living a robotic test run, because they didn’t know what loss was, and everything they felt was laughable because they were only children’s lives, if even.

“It’s honest,” said Loki. “And isn’t that what you want? Honesty?”

Thor took in a deep breath.

“All right, we’ll build off of that,” he said. “‘Dear Baldur, I know it’s been a week since your father passed away, but it must feel like yesterday. I can’t imagine what you must be dealing with…’”

(Dear Baldur, Thor thought as the first blade of grass grew on Mother’s grave mound, six years later, and far too soon. I understand now.)

* * *

 

Does twenty-three years of good luck promise forty-six years of bad luck?

If life was all right now, would it mean there was worse to come later?

If pain was God’s way of testing, then how much more will it hurt for a late bloomer?

Was it better for someone to die young, when Thor was young, with years and years to without them, but to not know them well enough to truly, truly lose them, or was it better to lose them near the end, but their heart poured so into him that he was overflowing, and suddenly that pitcher was gone and Thor was parched dry until he cracked and bled?

Thor had worried so much when life was kind. Now, when he struggled to wake up just because that meant getting out of bed, he would almost laugh at himself, because he was such a fool.

* * *

 

A week and a half after Loki’s release. When Thor came back home, arms laden with groceries from Sainsbury’s, he saw Loki in the living room, with the photo album.

Thor froze. The bags nearly fell from his arms—sudden pause meant they had enough time to fully feel their weight and snap off the plastic stretching handles. Spilling tomato sauce and lingonberry jam all over the floor.

Loki looked up. He seemed to notice nothing.

“I didn’t know you had this,” Loki said.

Thor nodded. He quickly set the bags down.

“Sentiment,” said Loki.

“Yeah,” Thor said, and he pretended to laugh.

“How long did you have this?” said Loki.

“I—a while.” Since Mother died. Since we were cleaning up the house and there was that old photo album of when we were five and ten, Loki, and Mother was there, and her hair was still long and gold, and she was beautiful. Since she was gone and I thought, I need something to remember, so I chose a scrapbook of memories I can hardly recall.

“Look at this one,” said Loki. He slipped one photograph out of the sleeve. Thor could hardly move from his place. “I rather remember this one. At the zoo. After our picnic on Primrose we went to the zoo and saw the camels.”

“We saw a lot of things,” said Thor.

Frigga was holding a baby Loki in her arms. Baby Loki who was only the height of a shy rosebush at the time, who would grow to tower her, tall enough to carry her if he knew Mother was dying.

“Look here,” said Loki. “This one is just of you.”

Thor looked. He was only a toddler in this photo, waddling in a sea of winter clothing. Mother was holding his hand; she had to bend to the side just to reach him. His fist could only hold onto two of her fingers. Thor clenched his hand.

“It’s so strange,” said Loki, “to see baby pictures of you.”

“For you?” said Thor. “I’m the one naked in the bathtub in these.”

Loki gave half a smile.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps it’s because I certainly never saw you any younger than a four-year-old. Look at you here. You’re a baby. All I’ve ever known you as is a giant.”

Thor cracked a stinging smile.

“Am I still a giant?” said Thor.

Loki didn’t answer.

“Mum’s beautiful,” Loki said.

“That she is,” Thor said. He sat down next to Loki.

“I want to see her,” Loki said. “It’s been months.”

Thor loved his brother so much. But maybe if he truly loved Loki, he would have told him sooner.

“Loki,” said Thor. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He took the photo album from Loki’s lap and placed it on the coffee table. Loki turned to face him, unassuming.

“What is it?” said Loki.

Thor hungrily took in Loki’s painfully unaware gaze; it was dawning on him that this may be the last time Loki would ever trust him this way.

“When you—” Thor’s mouth was dry. He swallowed. “When you were at the—the hospital, this past year, we—well, that is, Mother—”

At ‘mother,’ Loki raised his head a little higher. God, he was only a child, still locked up in a twenty-one-year-old body and soul, about to be killed.

“Mother had cancer, when you were in the hospital,” said Thor. “She was diagnosed about a year ago.”

“What?” Loki said.

His voice was shattering. Suddenly he looked frozen, each curved finger or bent knee deliberately carved and lifeless. Thor’s heart sank deeper and deeper until it was drowning.

“Cancer?” Loki said. “But she—where?”

“The stomach,” Thor said. “The doctors found it late. She—she didn’t want to tell you, not until you would be released. She didn’t want to worry or stress you.”

Loki’s breaths were short. His fingernails were piercing his palm. He shook his head stiffly.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Loki said. “Hell, I could have been visiting her all this time. She must be in so much pain. I’m not worried, I—I’m not stressed, I’m fine, she doesn’t have to worry, she doesn’t—you should have told me _sooner_ , Thor, what the hell?” He ran both hands through his hair. “I’m fine now, I’ll see her now. Stomach cancer—oh God. She should have told me. Where is she staying, Thor?” He paused, breath hitched. “Thor?”

Thor didn’t realise he was crying until Loki lifted a hand, as if to wipe the tear away, before pausing, dreading. It hurt, because Thor loved Loki, and he was about to show how, and because of it he knew Loki would never believe him.

“Loki,” Thor said, and tears are falling and he had to stay strong, he had to be strong, _he_ was the big brother, he needed to be there for Loki, even though he never had been. “Loki, three weeks before you were released, Mother passed away.”

It was like Loki had stopped living the moment those words fell from Thor’s mouth. He became stone, eyes wide, lips still parted in some last breath, frozen stiff like the ones in the morgue that were long unsalvageable. All colour drained from Loki’s face.

“Loki, listen to me,” Thor said.

“I don’t want to,” Loki said. He was shaking uncontrollably. He pressed a hand over one ear. “I don’t want to. You’re saying things I don’t want to hear.”

“Loki,” Thor said. He bit back a sob. “She died April twenty-sixth. She told us never to tell you, she didn’t want you to know. Loki, I’m sorry.”

Loki shook his head vigorously, his eyes growing so wide he looked like he was returning to a child again, de-aging into a baby who couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, couldn’t hurt, who had a mother to hold them.

“You’re lying to me,” Loki said. His voice was thin, breathless. “You’re lying to me, you—you can’t be—”

He let out a wretched, choked cry. He clasped the sides of his head with both hands, fingers digging into his hair. When Thor tried to touch him, put a hand on Loki’s wrists to pull them away from his head, he immediately jumped back, scrambling out of his seat and backing away from Thor as if Thor was hurting him.

“Loki, I’m so sorry,” Thor said. “Please—please, sit down, Loki—”

“You’re lying to me,” Loki said. He was fighting back sobs. He held out a hand as if to tell Thor to keep away, go away, don’t hurt me. “You’re lying to me—Mother’s still alive. Mum’s still okay, she’s okay, I still have time to be with her, I still have time to say goodbye, she’s not—you’re lying to me, tell me you’re lying, Thor. _Tell me_!”

When Thor could do nothing but sob, Loki raised his chin. He was trembling. He stared long and hard at Thor, painfully silent, before staggering out of the living room. Thor immediately got up to follow him, but the moment Thor moved, Loki bolted.

“Loki!”

Loki ripped the framed photos that hung on the wall. He ran into Thor’s bedroom and didn’t bother slamming the door behind him before with the swipe of his arms he knocked the standing mirror down. The mirror shattered on the wooden floor; they cut Loki’s bare feet as he lurched, desperately seeking more to destroy as he ripped the drapes from the windows, the sheets from the bed. He threw the alarm clock and the table lamp from the nightstand, ripped drawers full of clothing out, leaving bloody footsteps where he moved. Thor could hardly come close without something coming thrown far too close to his eyes.

“Loki, _please_!”

“Don’t touch me,” Loki said. “I swear to God, Thor, don’t you _dare_ touch me, don’t you—”

Thor took a step closer. Loki let out a yell before he bent down and desperately grabbed a handful of broken glass and hurled it at Thor. Thor immediately held up a hand; the mirror shards only fell against his shirt and clattered. Loki’s fingers bled.

“Mama,” Loki whispered. His eyes were glazing over and blood fell from his fingers. His lips were trembling. “Mama— _Mama!_ ”

He tried to throw another shard of mirror at Thor, but he swung his arm and the momentum was too much for his unsteady feet and he fell into his own broken shards. Thor immediately knelt by Loki’s side before Loki could push him away, pulling Loki from the glass that already ripped his arm and hand.

“I’m so sorry, Loki,” Thor said. He held Loki close, because he needed to, and because if he didn’t, Loki would hurt himself more, and more, until he was nothing but shreds and dust. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Loki let out a scream. It dragged out of him until his back arched, until his muscles were taut and shaking, until at the end he was empty and limp in Thor’s arms. Thor buried his face into Loki’s back, unable to hold back tears, because he failed, he gave up, he couldn’t be what Loki needed him to be. Mother was dead, and Loki couldn’t even see that for himself, because she was long starved and cancerous, long buried, and he couldn’t hold her in his arms anymore.

“I’m sorry, little brother—” There was little else that he could say now.

* * *

 

“She promised she wouldn’t leave me,” said Loki.

It was raining—pouring, really, harder than usual at this time of the year, but Loki didn’t give a damn. Rain couldn’t wash six feet of dirt off of Mother, anyway.

There was a bundle of flowers against the headstone. Drooping hyacinths and daffodils, tied up with a clumsy ribbon. Loki made it himself, refusing to stop for a flower bouquet at Marks & Spencer where he could pick up a sandwich and coffee if he wanted to, before heading to his mother’s grave for the first and last time. He picked the flowers himself—from where, Thor didn’t know, but he reckoned several neighbours’ gardens were emptier than usual.

“Sign of a fucking bad mother, isn’t it?” Loki said.

His voice was hollow. There were stitches on his feet and on his hands. The doctors said he would be all right. Thor figured this was their way of telling him, you fucked up, so much.

Thor stood behind Loki as Loki remained kneeling next to the headstone. Their mother’s name carved into it, with definite dates of birth and death, was like something out of a wretched story, statements and phrases found only in news articles and books that they didn’t belong to their lives.

“Who—?” Thor had to make sure Loki wouldn’t pick at the stitches and rip his hand open again when he caved to his nervous tic. His fingers were shaking when he couldn’t dig out his own skin. “Who _says that_ to anyone? It’s a fucking lie, from beginning to end. ‘I’ll never leave you’—that’s a goddamn lie.”

Thor said nothing. Loki kept his gaze locked on the soil, anywhere but Thor or Frigga’s headstone. Loki never did see Frigga’s casket being lowered into the ground; for all he knew, this was all a farce, or the coffin was empty, or it wasn’t six feet under but six inches. Death, which was supposed to be so definitive and certain, was really only something to have faith about.

“You don’t tell anyone that,” Loki said. “You don’t tell a _child_ that—”

You aren’t a child, Loki. Not anymore.

“You don’t tell that and promise that when nothing— _nothing_ —will help you keep that promise,” Loki said. “Everyone leaves, all the time, in the end. Everyone has to. Promising that only hurts in the end. What kind of person would try to do that to—who would ever do that to anyone?”

Loki tucked his chin against his shoulder. Maybe if he refused to look at Frigga’s headstone enough, it wouldn’t be hers. He never saw her die. Maybe he could not believe it.

You’re not a child, Loki, you can’t create reality because you don’t like it. But it’s the adults who are so keen on seeing in order to believe, while children will accept the invisible. So what are you, Loki? Lost, between childhood and adulthood, too late for one but too hopeless in the other.

“She knew she’d be gone one day, and she still lied to me,” Loki said. His voice choked. “She told me she would never leave me even though she knew that wasn’t true. And I was a fucking bad child for believing her.”

He squeezed his eyes tight and buried his face in his hand. Thor knelt down and rested Loki’s head against his shoulders. Loki melted in him immediately, clinging to Thor’s jacket. It must look pathetic to anyone watching them, to see a full grown man clutching another and using his jacket as a handkerchief, but to Thor, it was just tormenting.

 _Don’t leave me_ , said the way Loki’s fingers curled around Thor’s arms, fingernails digging into his sleeve, the way his face buried into Thor’s shoulder. _Don’t leave me_ , which he would never say, and Thor knew he would never make that promise.

* * *

 

Thor was screaming.

Dinner, or some semblance of it, was smeared on the floor, broken plates, broken glass. Thor was screaming, and he doubted a single word of it was getting into Loki’s head, because Loki was screaming too, at Thor or with Thor or whatever he was screaming Thor didn’t _know_. Loki wouldn’t eat—refused to eat, panicked to not eat, no no no get that away stop Thor don’t make me—then made himself _vomit_ when Thor tried to force a piece of potato into Loki’s mouth and Thor couldn’t take it anymore.

“You want to go back to the ward?” Thor said. “Is that what you want?”

“Don’t you dare,” Loki said. He had already ripped his stitches once—and at this rate, he was threatening to do it again. “Don’t you dare use that as a threat against me, Thor, don’t you— _don’t you dare_ —”

“What do you want me to do?” Thor said. He was almost in hysterics now. He was so tired, he had broken kitchenware and hell, he was a young man, he had a tight budget and could only afford so many replacements, and his brother _wouldn’t get better_. “What do I need to do—I don’t know what to do for you. I’m at the end of my wits, I’m hopeless, I’m absolutely hopeless, _what do you want me to do_?”

“ _Stop yelling at me_!” Loki said at the top of his lungs. “Stop it, just stop it, I—” He was hyperventilating, or something, Thor didn’t know, Thor couldn’t know anymore and right now he couldn’t care because he was so _tired_. “I want to get out of here, I don’t want to be here, I want to go home, Thor, I can’t do this anymore, I want to—”

“I can’t do this anymore either!” Thor said. He wanted to break his own kitchen table. “Going home won’t change anything for you, Loki, because you’ll still be this goddamned mess no matter where you are.”

“I am a mess,” Loki said. “I’m a goddamned, godforsaken, hopeless mess, I understand, but _I don’t know what to do either_!” He let out a sob. “I’m a mess and I don’t know what to do, but I don’t want to be one anymore. I don’t want to be one but you and—you and the doctors and the nurses and the police, you all won’t let me stop, you all keep making me stay in this damn body _alive_.”

He pressed a hand against his mouth. “I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. Please, I don’t know this place. I don’t know it. It’s lonely. It’s so goddamn lonesome here.”

“Loki, listen to me—” Loki tried to swat Thor away. Thor grabbed both of Loki’s wrists and jerked him forward. “ _Listen to me_ —there’s nothing better anywhere out there for you, all right? Not home, not Hampstead, not Primrose Hill, not outside of Greenwich—not in the Atlantic Ocean, not out in space, not _anywhere_ that will make you better, that will _change_ any of this. You’re not a child, anymore, Loki—” His voice tore. “All of this isn’t because you’re homesick—home isn’t _home_ anymore, that you think it. If you don’t find your own yourself you won’t _have_ one.”

Loki bowed his head, trying desperately not to let Thor see him. Thor tightened his grip; he was so tired, and yet he felt like he could break Loki if he held just a little tighter.

“And I don’t know what to do for you anymore,” Thor said. “I didn’t ask for this, I don’t know how to take care of you, I _can’t_ keep taking care of you. I don’t have anything left in me to, I’m so _tired_!”

He let go. Loki let his hands fall to his sides, shoulders shaking. Thor stepped back, trying to breathe, trying to _understand_ and live and keep grasp of what was left of his life, because it was too soon for it to just fall to shit. He left the dining room, splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom, trying to regain some control of himself, if that was the only thing he had control over anymore.

Mother was gone, and it felt like so was the rest of the family. Thor was doing so much as leaving it, truly—even if in symbolism and in sentiment marriage merged two into one, Thor knew that he was now creating his own, forming his own family and his own life outside of the childhood house that was nothing more than a husk now, that he was drawing further away. Mother was dead, Father gave up, and Loki was left behind, and Thor didn’t know how to bring him back anymore. Left to try to sweep up the broken parts of an ended family and piece it together himself, and in the end it mattered to no one else.

But Loki was still his brother—his _little brother_ and if he didn’t care for him, no one else had any want or care or love or obligation to. His little brother was lost, and Thor had made him that way, their whole damn family did, and Thor was willing to push him away.

He took in a deep breath and gave his face another douse of cold water before returning to the kitchen. He didn’t know what to do—but that didn’t mean he could leave Loki behind, and alone.

“Loki?” said Thor.

The kitchen had its broken plates, its potatoes crushed against the floor. Silverware scattered. But Loki was gone.

Thor felt the blood drain from his face. He wrenched open the silverware drawer; the knives were all still there. He ran to the living room—no sign. Not in his bedroom. Nowhere in the flat. Loki was gone.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Loki!” he called out.

He was alone.

(I don’t want the next time I see him be if I’m identifying his body)

He couldn’t help but let out a choked moan.

“Oh, Loki,” he whispered.

He didn’t stop to close the door behind him.

* * *

 

_I have conversed with the spiritual Sun…I saw him on Primrose Hill._

And Thor may have come too late, because the sun had long given up, leaving a dim evening behind the half-mast sky. He ran, chasing, maybe, phantoms, because he didn’t know if Loki would be there. Regent’s Park—and their old home—was a good three hour walk away, and by the time Thor reached there, dipping in and out of old haunts where Loki may have hidden, it was already threatening night. The lampposts of the park were lighting up, amber nubs like glasses in pubs.

_I have conversed with the spiritual Sun—_

God, I’m all he has left, and he’s all I have left, of this family. Please don’t let anything happen to him, don’t let anything hurt him, not me, not life, not himself, not what you can throw down from your mighty shelf. Give it to me, give the pain to me, just don’t make him hurt anymore, don’t make him cry anymore.

_I saw him on—_

“Loki,” Thor breathed.

His little brother was sitting on one of the benches on the hilltop, hugging himself tightly. The whole London skyline was spilt at the foot of the hill, the lights dawning as the sun was setting, and constellations of lampposts along the hillside. He was holding his hand gingerly, as if the bones were broken.

“Loki,” Thor said.

Loki let out a shaking breath. His face was ashen; that much Thor did not need the sun to see. He looked like he was dying.

Thor was afraid to approach. If he loved Loki, he may have come sooner, wouldn’t he?

He sat down on the bench next to Loki. Loki did not react, only kept clutching his arms and staring out toward the darkening backdrop of their home city. Soon night would wash over until it smothered even the lampposts, and the hill would say, sorry, we’re closed, and somehow they would have to make it back home in the dark and try not to get lost. Try to find home when they were blind and scared, holding hands, wishing for a torch to roast toy bangers on or a mother’s hand to guide them home.

Or go back to their parents’ old home in Chalk Farm, twenty minutes away, and sleep in dusty sheets and old memories and realise that no, nothing was the same, nothing would be. They’ve lost something irrevocably, in their mother, in their growing up and growing apart, and if they can never salvage it then it was not supposed to be a tragedy but a fact of life, except it still hurt.

Thor turned to look at Loki. Loki looked so tired, eyes hungrily taking in the old view that he had deemed precious as a child, searching out to meet the sun he had raced for, only to find it already dead and extinguished.

“Loki,” Thor said. His voice cracked. “I love you.”

Loki let his head hang low. Thor tried to reach for him; he recoiled.

“I love you, Loki,” Thor said. “I’m so sorry.”

He had been saying that so many times in just two weeks. He couldn’t tell if that was right or wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and he was crying again. “I know. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help you, and I mess up when I try to love you, all the time. But I love you. I want you to be safe, I want you to be happy. I love you.”

Why did it hurt so much? Thor didn’t know which he was talking about—the grief, the loss, the growing up, the moving apart. The falling apart, the fear, the sense of impending and undeniable change. It all hurt, though, and either way Thor did not know the answer besides the fact of, it did.

And ten years from now, they might not sit here, side by side, on Primrose Hill as the sun set. They might not have Father anymore either, or the ash tree at the front, or each other. But God, the spiritual Sun, anything that was willing and merciful, anyone they could possibly trust each other with because they couldn’t trust each other with themselves, _let them still be here_.

Thor was tentative—maybe Loki was still angry at him, indignant, he wouldn’t blame him—but he reached out and put his arms around Loki. Loki was still and tense, hugging himself tightly as if Thor wasn’t enough. And Thor wasn’t. He knew that. But Thor was all that Thor could give.

“Let’s go back home, Loki,” Thor said. “I know it’s not the same. I know it probably won’t ever be. I’m sorry—I wish it could. I wish we could slow down or go back. But be okay with me, please. We can’t go back in time, but please—move forward with me. Together.”

Please.

Loki slowly unwound his arms. He did not return the embrace, but he leaned closer into Thor, resting his head in the curve of Thor’s neck. His hair tickled Thor’s chin. It felt achingly nostalgic.

“Thor,” Loki said.

His voice was quiet. He reached a hand to hold onto Thor’s wrist. His grip was gentle, so easily to break away. Thor made sure he wouldn’t move an inch.

“Oh, Thor,” Loki said, and he was choking down a sob. “More than anything in the world I hope I will die before you.”

It was the most love Loki ever said to Thor, and it hurt. Thor hugged Loki tightly, cradling his head against his shoulder. Loki didn’t shake, he let himself be held, with only one hand on Thor’s. Let Thor cry, and be weak, and break.

* * *

( _"Race with me, Thor."_

_"Where to?"_

_"To the top of the hill—I swear, it's so high we can tower the city. We can reach the sun."_

_"Maybe if we jump from it,_ _we'd fly together."_

_"What if we fall?"_

_"Then we fall together. Would that be so bad?")_


End file.
